Many enterprise applications must interact with human users through a variety of media. For example, applications, such as e-commerce, customer relationship management, supply chain and crisis management applications, often interact with a user using one or more of voice, electronic mail, conferencing, instant messaging or text messaging communications media.
Traditionally, developers of such enterprise applications had to integrate the applications with a variety of communication servers that implement the desired communication media. Generally, developers were required to have a thorough understanding of the complex details of the required protocols and devote a substantial part of the application development effort to the integration with communication servers. In addition, developers were required to address the convergence of communication capabilities across protocols and media, i.e., the extension of capabilities from one communication protocol and medium to others and the alignment of similar, yet incongruous capabilities across different protocols and media.
A need therefore exists for methods and apparatus for developing communications applications that bridge the communication media and communication application worlds. A further need exists for a communication application development tool that provides a high-level workflow-based programming interface that facilitates the creation and maintenance of complex communications applications.